


At the Hands of the Wicked

by Quasar



Category: Doctrine of Labyrinths - Monette
Genre: M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2006, recipient:Ishafel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-15
Updated: 2006-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:36:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasar/pseuds/Quasar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of The Virtu, something is troubling Mildmay, and it might not be all in his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Hands of the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishafel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/gifts).



  


## At the Hands of the Wicked

 

Fandom: [Sarah Monette - Melusine series (book)](http://yuletidetreasure.org/get_fandom_quicksearch.cgi?Fandom=Sarah%20Monette%20-%20Melusine%20series%20\(book\))

 

Written for: Ishafel in the Yuletide 2006 Challenge

by [Quasar](http://yuletidetreasure.org/cgi-bin/contact.cgi?filename=23/atthe)

I had never heard of this series of books before I got my Yuletide assignment, which matched me with a fandom I shouldn't have signed up for. Now that I've discovered this series, I really love them. Thanks for the cool request!

 

## At the Hands of the Wicked

 

_ **Mildmay** _

 

First time I seen her was around the end of the first decad of Messidor. I didn't even notice the date until later. Last indiction, I flat out missed it. It had to've come around sometime, probably about when we were leaving Troia. But what with foreign talk all around us, and Felix trying to get me to talk flash whenever we had a minute to speak Marathine together, I lost track of the old calendar and didn't notice until we were in Klepsydra and it was already late Messidor, or Dúroc, whatever you care to call it.

 

By the time we got back to Mélusine, what with all the septad and six putrid things that happened on the way and after we got here -- and a little good stuff too, like Mehitabel -- I wasn't hardly thinking about Ginevra anymore. Every few days, I'd remember, and it still felt like a hole'd been punched through my chest when I thought of her lying throat-cut in the Dead Gallery. So pale and peaceful she looked, but I know there wasn't no way it could've been peaceful for her at all, at the end. But I wasn't thinking of her every minute these days, because I had bigger bugs biting me.

 

I didn't feel guilty about it, not really. I mean, I wouldn't want to forget her completely, but it didn't make no difference to Ginevra if I beat my head on the bricks because she was gone. It did make a difference to me, and I liked not being wretched all the time, so it was okay by me if the memory of her stood back a little into the distance.

 

Of course, the things that were keeping my mind off her weren't exactly fun, either. Specially Strych. I still didn't remember what all he'd done to me, but I had some dire dreams about it.

 

We'd been back in the Mirador a few decads, and Felix was all wrapped up in court stuff getting himself accepted again, and him and Gideon seemed happy enough with each other, and I hadn't thought about Ginevra in the better part of a septad, when one day I looked up and there she was.

 

At first I thought it was one of the parlor maids that just happened to look like Ginevra. Those stuffy high-necked dresses she used to wear for working in that Carnelian Road jewelry shop weren't so different from what the maids wore in the Mirador. But this wasn't no maid, because she looked straight at me, and she smiled, and then she disappeared. Not with a flash or all at once -- she just sort of faded out.

 

And me standing in the corridor staring like a gap-wit.

 

There was other folk about. Maids, like I thought she was at first, and others going about their duties. I was using the servant halls for a short-cut, because no one hassled me there. Mostly they were too busy to stop and talk. But they didn't specially appreciate having an idiot stopping up their hallway for them when they was trying to get work done, so I got jostled some before I pulled my wits back about me and started walking again.

 

I told myself it was just my imagination. But then later that night I remembered what date it was, and my heart just about stopped in my chest. What did it mean? I never seen a ghost before, even though I can feel when they're about. But I saw her, all right, plain and solid-looking as any person you can touch.

 

I thought her appearing must have been something to do with the anniversary, because I didn't see her again after that. At least, not until the fever came on me.

_ **Felix** _

 

I was ashamed that it took me so long to notice that my brother was sick. Ashamed, but not particularly surprised; I'd warned him more than a year ago that I wasn't a nice person and there would be times when being ignored would be the best he could expect from me. But that was before the obligation d'âme, before I had a thread linking him to me so that I could sense him every hour of every day. Before I truly understood how much I loved and desired him, and before I drove him into the hands of Malkar Gennadion in hopes of saving my own pitiful neck. I should have learned to pay better attention, but apparently I hadn't.

 

The winter rains came early and hard, as they had two years before -- or so I was told, for I couldn't remember that time at all clearly. The previous winter, by contrast, had been mild and relatively dry. That was fortunate for us, as we were on the road then, traveling in caravans and an elderly durance, sleeping in inns or sometimes open fields, vulnerable to the weather.

 

I had been busy with one court function after another, trying to rehabilitate my reputation. I wasn't expecting to be reinstated as a member of the Curia, and in fact I didn't entirely want reinstatement; the power and the prestige appealed, to be sure, but not the additional rules and obligations that would hem me around if I took up my old position again. Instead, I discussed thaumaturgical theory with anyone who would speak to me. With Vida and Giancarlo I stuck to more innocuous subjects such as the Sybilline, Troian divination, and architectural thaumaturgy. With Gideon I could speak of things that were technically heresy by Cabaline rules: Troian healing, labyrinths, necromancy both benign and otherwise. Thaddeus spoke to me rarely, but I exerted myself to be pleasant on such occasions. Stephen and the other Teverii I avoided, but treated with respect when we were forced into conversation.

 

I was also trying to guess what Robert of Hermione might be planning next. I was certain he had something in mind, just from the gleam in his eye and the curl of his lip whenever he looked in my direction. There might be nothing I could do to throw his schemes off course, but at least I wanted to be properly warned. If he was still trying to undermine my reputation -- as he had when he told the court I was a whore, and again when he tried to convince Giancarlo I was still "unstable" -- I might be able to limit the damage. Or perhaps I could even strike back; two could play at the scandal game.

 

I thought to ask my brother to tease out whatever rumors he could, either concerning Robert's plans or any useful skeletons from his past. Mildmay didn't like to share his methods with me, but I suspected some combination of stealthy observation and gossiping with servants. Neither technique was possible for me, as I was too well-known to every inhabitant of the Mirador. Mildmay should have been equally conspicuous, with his hair even brighter red than mine and the salacious rumors circulating about our relationship, but somehow he managed to be invisible when he wished it. It was not a trick I had ever mastered.

 

I dragged myself out of bed one morning earlier than was my wont, hoping to catch Mildmay before he went off on his own mysterious errands. I opened the door to the small side-room off my own suite, saying, "Mildmay, I need your --" and froze.

 

He was still abed, huddled on his side under blankets mounded so high I thought for a moment he must have someone in there with him. But only his face appeared, red-nosed and puffy-eyed, when he pushed the blankets down to look at me.

 

"You look terrible," I said, and he did. His face was pale, save for the red on the tip of his nose and feverish flags above his cheekbones. His eyelashes were clumped with mucus, and he shivered despite the stuffy heat of the room. As he started to sit up, a wet cough took hold of him, and he curled in on himself, making that dreadful rattling sound with every breath.

 

"Feel putrid," he gasped out at last.

 

"Stay in bed," I told him. "I'll get Gideon." Since he had sworn no oaths as a Cabaline wizard, it was not technically heresy for Gideon to perform healing magic, although it might add to the scandal that dogged me, if anyone found out. I didn't care about my reputation just then; in fact, I wished I knew some healing spells of my own. I watched anxiously as Gideon drew sigils about the bed and laid his hands on Mildmay's chest and throat. He made no incantation, of course, but I could just sense a distant mutter flowing through his mind in words I didn't understand.

 

Mehitabel appeared with a posset and a foul-smelling plaster for Mildmay's chest. I didn't ask how she had learned that he was sick, or how she had gotten through the Mirador's gates. I just waited and let the others fuss until Mildmay demanded irritably to be left alone. When Gideon and Mehitabel were gone, I stepped to my brother's bedside.

 

"Would you like me to ward your dreams?" I asked.

 

Something odd passed across his face, which was always so still and unreadable. I would almost have said it was some combination of relief and sadness, or even grief, but that made no sense. I had merely guessed that he might be having unpleasant dreams about his captivity in the Bastion; why would he grieve to have such dreams removed for a while?

 

"Yeah, that'd be good," he muttered. He did sound a little better, I told myself.

 

I touched his hot forehead and whispered the words to keep him safe, for a while, in his sleep.

_ **Mildmay** _

 

Since I was thinking about the old calendar, I noticed when next Neuvième came around. Felix forgot to order me to stay clear of the Lower Town after that time he sent me on a fool's errand to Dassament. I didn't see no need to remind him of it. Couldn't hurt for me to spend an afternoon down at Fishmarket, anyway, and I knew well enough how to get around without being marked by them that hated me.

 

My fever was gone, and the cough too, mostly. I still wasn't sleeping right, but I felt okay to be walking around. It was a bitter cold day, but at least it wasn't raining. I figured a heavy coat, hat and gloves would do well enough to keep me warm on top of making me less noticeable.

 

I only had to wait a bit before Cardenio got off duty, and the surprise on his face when I stepped in his path was something to see. We walked into Richard's Park and he kept stealing little glances at me, up and down. "You look different," he said.

 

Even with the hat on, my hair showed about the edges. I tugged at it a little. "I don't dye it anymore," I said.

 

"No, that's not it. I always knew about your hair anyway," said Cardenio. "It's something in your eyes, and the way you move."

 

I looked down. "Leg got messed up in a shipwreck last year," I said. And that hurt enough to think about; I didn't want to hear no more about other ways I'd changed. "I'm sorry I ain't been down to see you, Cardenio. Felix --" I couldn't just say he wouldn't let me come, even though it was true. And saying I was too busy would be a different kind of insult.

 

But Cardenio said, "I know. I met your brother a while back."

 

I stopped in my tracks and stared.

 

"Had to take a message to him from the Kalliphorne," said Cardenio, looking sort of shy about it, but a little smug too. "About you being taken out of the city. I'm glad you're back safe, Mildmay."

 

"Me too," I said, but I was still working on what he'd told me. "You went up to the Mirador?"

 

"Well, I couldn't exactly send the message with someone else, could I? I had to call in favors from one person and another. That nice lady, that Miss Parr, she helped me get word to your brother with nobody else hearing of it."

 

I hadn't bothered to ask Felix how he found me. I thought he just figured it out from those dreams Strych -- Malkar, Felix calls him -- was sending him. Seems I had more people fighting to get me back than I guessed. "Well, uh, thanks," I said, and coughed.

 

"Oh, Cade, I forgot about you and your winter chills," said Cardenio. "Come on, let's get out of this wind and you can tell me all your adventures over dinner."

 

The corner table in the Wheat-Dancer was private enough, but even so I didn't tell him everything. Not that Cardenio would be surprised to hear I done things illegal, immoral, and sort of heretical. But I couldn't really explain all the weird hocus stuff Felix had done or why he had to do it, since I didn't get half the reasons myself. And I sure as shit didn't want to talk about the obligation d'âme. The story was plenty long even without those bits and took up the best part of the meal. Finally we got past all the catching-up we had to do, and I could ask him what I came for.

 

"Cardenio, what do you -- what do cade-skiffs know about ghosts?"

 

He blinked. "Wouldn't you be better asking them hocuses up at the Mirador about that?"

 

I shook my head. "Cabaline wizards don't believe in ghosts. Claim they don't exist."

 

He looked like I'd hit him upside the head with a bargepole. "Of course they exist!"

 

"Ever seen one?" I asked quick and sharp.

 

"No . . ." He frowned a little, as if he had to give it thought. "I've felt 'em, though. You can tell when they're near, if you pay attention."

 

"I know," I sighed. "I been in the Boneprince at septad-night. You don't have to tell me."

 

"Then why are you asking?"

 

"Because I never seen one either," I told him. "Until now."

 

His eyes went round.

 

"You saw her," I said. "I mean, when she died. She was brought in by cade-skiffs."

 

"Your lady-friend?"

 

"Anybody mention a new ghost around the Dead Gallery? Or near St. Kirban's?"

 

He shook his head. "Not that I've heard of."

 

"Shit." I had to look away. "Why's she haunting me, then? Why not the place where she died, or them that killed her?"

 

Cardenio scratched his head. "Well . . . in the stories, ghosts always want something. Give 'em what they want and you lay 'em to rest."

 

"But what about when they won't tell you what they want?" I exploded.

 

Cardenio just shook his head. "Mildmay, why are you asking me this?"

 

I shrugged. "Thought you might know. You or the other cade-skiffs. You work with the dead, I thought you'd know about ghosts."

 

"I know stories, same as you. Why don't you ask your brother?"

 

I jerked. "I told you, Cabalines don't believe in ghosts."

 

"From what I've heard of Felix Harrowgate, he's not exactly one to follow the rules." And how the hells did Cardenio come to know so much about my brother?

 

"I don't want --" I couldn't finish. Didn't want to be beholden; didn't want to lean on Felix for everything; didn't want to be swallowed up by him completely and stop being my own person.

 

"If _I_ had a problem with a ghost, and I knew a smart, powerful hocus I could trust, I know who I'd be asking," Cardenio said.

 

I stood up and threw a coin on the table. "Thanks, Cardenio. Nice seeing you again."

_ **Felix** _

 

I am not by nature a patient man, but after the Bastion I learned to wait. I waited for Mildmay to be ready to speak again, or ready to speak to me, in specific. I waited for him to tell me whatever it was he thought I should know.

 

After Gideon treated Mildmay's illness, there were long days of tension and tiresome court brangling. Robert had tried to create trouble over Gideon's use of magic on Mildmay, but I had managed to head him off by initiating a debate with Stephen over the occasional merits of certain healing practices -- though of course, they would never do for a _Cabaline_ wizard, oh no. With Stephen's bemused assent heard by all, Robert couldn't make an issue out of what was, in any light, a very minor transgression.

 

I didn't trouble Mildmay with the tale of this petty intrigue, nor did he share his own worries with me. But quite abruptly one evening he came to the desk where I was working on my correspondence, and said, "You see ghosts."

 

I blinked. "No, but I can sense them sometimes."

 

Mildmay frowned. "You used to."

 

"Ah." I sat back and considered the scattered memories of the time I had spent under Malkar's assorted curses. "Yes, that's true. I saw them and heard them, when I was . . . insane."

 

Mildmay's breath whooshed out. "You think I'm mad?"

 

"No, I do not!" I said harshly, making him step back a little. I was about to follow up with the explanation that he was still recovering from Malkar's influence, and naturally that would take some time. But something in his manner made me pause and trace back the conversation. "Have you been seeing ghosts?" I asked at last.

 

He shrugged a shoulder. "One."

 

"And because of that, you fear you're insane?"

 

Another shrug. "Dunno."

 

I pushed back a few hairs that had escaped from my queue and tried to consider the matter dispassionately. "I don't think you're mad. It's possible some of the magic you've been . . . subjected to may have given you an enhanced sensitivity to such things. I'll research the matter for you, if you wish. But ghosts are nearly always harmless. Most of them simply re-enact whatever experience was most important in their lives, and they take no heed of the living."

 

Mildmay and licked his lips thoughtfully. "She sees me, too."

 

That was certainly unusual. "You're certain of that?"

 

"Smiles at me. Sometimes she . . . I think she wants me to follow her."

 

"Did you know this person, when she was alive?"

 

He nodded and swallowed hard. "Ginevra."

 

I'd heard the name before: a lover whose death, before we met, troubled Mildmay greatly. But from the little I knew of her it was unlikely in the extreme that she'd ever been to the Mirador.

 

"Does she speak to you?" I asked.

 

He shooked his head. "First I thought it was the day," he said obscurely. "Then the fever. But she still comes to me, awake and asleep."

 

The whole thing sounded wrong to me. Ghosts normally appeared in places significant to them; a place where they lived, or died, or were buried. I had never heard of a ghost haunting a specific person. "I'll do some research," I promised. "Give me a few days. Tell me if you see her again, or dream of her, but do nothing yet, do you hear me?"

 

He nodded, still frowning, and drifted away.

~*~

 

I walked the paths of the garden, breathing the warm air rich with the scent of the perseïdes. Thamuris awaited me, as I knew he would, near the Omphalos.

 

"Something strange is going on," I told him after we had exchanged greetings. "Mildmay is seeing a ghost."

 

There were ghosts in the Khloïdanikos; not tormented souls, but echoes of the oneiromancers who had created this imaginary dream-garden. Thamuris and I no longer even bothered to dodge them as we strolled the quiet paths. One day, perhaps, my own ghostly echo would walk here in my absence -- if anyone else discovered the secrets of this garden in the future to witness it.

 

Thamuris tilted his head. "Have you considered that your brother might not be entirely annemer?"

 

That was unexpected. "Wizardry must be taught at a young age," I parroted my unlamented teacher. "Otherwise --"

 

"Certainly, he's too old to learn the craft," said Thamuris. "And whatever latent power he might have must be small, or it would have awakened long before. But he might be developing a sensitivity to magic."

 

It was nearly the same thing I had said to Mildmay myself, but viewed in a different light. I had cast the obligation d'âme on Mildmay and had drawn on his strength when I mended the Virtu. Malkar had very likely cast spells on Mildmay in addition to the dream-sendings I had witnessed. Then there were the healings and curse-removals that had been performed by the Troians themselves. Might all of these together have brought Mildmay to some new awareness of his own magical potential?

 

I shook my head. "Most wizards don't actually see ghosts unless they use a spell," I objected. _Or go insane_, I forbore to add.

 

We had been walking while we spoke, and while I thought. Now we came to a short, decorative wall with a stunted perseïd tree hunched against it. The tree had been dead, or nearly so, during the time that Mildmay was imprisoned by Malkar in the Bastion. Since Mildmay's rescue, some of the branches had budded into leaf, and one into bloom. Even the crumbling wall seemed to be repairing itself.

 

We were not sure what it meant, but I suspected that the tree somehow represented Mildmay, or perhaps the relationship between myself and Mildmay. Or possibly -- I had not suggested this to Thamuris -- the state of my own blackened soul. All those things had been strained nearly to breaking but had begun to recover slowly since we rescued Mildmay.

 

Both tree and wall were beginning to look moderately robust by now, despite a few withered branches and a misplaced stone or two. As Thamuris and I approached, we saw that the tree was draped in some sort of cobwebby stuff as if in a shroud. The leaves and flowers were still visible beneath the film, but were beginning to droop a bit.

 

"Now, what can this signify?" Thamuris asked in bewilderment.

 

I felt a trace of true alarm begin to thread through my veins. "I think it means that Mildmay is in more danger than I guessed."

_ **Mildmay** _

 

Felix didn't use the binding when he told me not to follow Ginevra's ghost. I suppose he reckoned there wasn't no need to. I ain't stupid, and I ain't got the least desire to know where a ghost might lead me.

 

But it looked like his research wasn't helping much, because Felix didn't talk about it. There was books piled everywhere, but he would just grab one, flip through the pages and then toss it aside. He had Gideon checking too, but Gideon looked just as frustrated even if he didn't go throwing books around.

 

After a couple nights, Felix came to my room and said he wanted to teach me how to control my dreams. "Lucid" dreaming he called it, and that sounded like a word that Zephyr would've liked. Not such a long flash word as some of his favorites, but pretty, full of moonlight and clear water.

 

Or maybe I was getting fanciful myself on account of missing too much sleep. I kept feeling weird and disconnected, like the fever hadn't completely let go its hold of me. It was getting worse, too, like a fog hanging between me and everything else, getting a little thicker every day. I hardly heard Felix's voice in my dreams anymore. It was always her, smiling at me and calling my name, turning away and looking back to see if I was following.

 

Anyway, Felix told me about this lucid thing of his. It wasn't magic, he said; anyone could do it. It just required mental discipline. When I said that didn't sound much like me, he said it just took concentration and focus. I can concentrate, sure enough, when I got something worth paying attention to. So I listened to what Felix told me.

 

"Imagine you're looking down at Mélusine from the top of the Mirador," he said. "The whole city is laid out before you."

 

"Like a map?" I asked. I liked maps, but I never seen a map of Mélusine. Never needed one, neither; I knew how to get where I was going.

 

"A map, yes," he said. "You can see the walls of the city and each of the gates. The Corundum Gate in the north, the Gate of Horn, Carnelian, Chalcedony, Ivory --"

 

"You skipped Septad-Gate," I said.

 

Felix frowned. "That one doesn't matter. You don't need a gate in the south."

 

I figured he didn't like to think about Septad-Gate because of how he hated the Sim. I could understand that, but it made the imaginary map he was telling me to focus on seem wrong and off balance. Specially when he said there wasn't no gate in the northwest, neither.

 

"Each gate represents a different kind of dream," said Felix. "You decide which gate you want to go out, and that --"

 

"Why would I want to go out?" I asked.

 

"What?"

 

"What if I don't want to leave the city?"

 

I been out of Mélusine all right. I seen the big wide world beyond the walls and traveled to places most of my old friends couldn't even imagine. But with all I seen, Mélusine is still home. I wouldn't want to leave it without a damn good reason.

 

"You're not actually leaving the city," Felix explained not too patiently. "This is just a construct so you can control your dreams. Some people might picture an atrium with doors going in each direction, or a map with a compass rose."

 

That sounded more along my line, but I didn't say so. "Look, maybe I'm just too stupid to learn this stuff --"

 

"You're not stupid," Felix said right away. "Who told you that?"

 

I shrugged.

 

"Did your Keeper say you were stupid?"

 

"You ain't tried teaching me to read and write," I pointed out.

 

"No, but I'm sure if you wanted to learn it, you would," he said. "Look how quickly you pick up new languages, or the way you read maps -- the way you can remember a path through a maze after going through it just once, for pity's sake! Mildmay, you're not stupid!"

 

I had to duck my head so he wouldn't see my face glowing. "Well, but I don't know if I can learn this dream stuff."

 

"It takes more than one lesson," said Felix. "It's not enough for me to describe the procedure to you; you have to practice it. Each night before you sleep, imagine the city laid out in front of you."

 

Or the compass rose, I thought to myself. But I nodded.

 

"You can't control every aspect of your dreams, but you can choose the direction they'll go in," Felix said seriously.

 

"Doesn't sound like dreaming at all," I said. "Not very restful, is it, if you have to be in control all the time?"

 

He sighed. "That's why you don't use this for every dream. Just when there's something important you need to find out. Or a nightmare you want to get through so it won't come again, for example."

 

"Why not just get you to ward my dreams for me?"

 

"Has that been working?"

 

I shrugged.

 

"The warding doesn't last forever, and it doesn't work for all dreams," Felix said. "From what you've said of this ghost, that may be one of the things I can't block. But if you choose the Horn Gate -- the path of true dreaming, you might be able to learn what she really wants from you."

 

"So it's like a kind of divination?" I asked. "Why not just use those cards you got from Mavortian, then?"

 

He frowned. "Perhaps I will try that. But the Sybilline is more specific when the caster is also the subject of the reading."

 

"So maybe I should learn the cards."

 

Felix shook his head. "That would be too complicated, and it won't work as well without magic. Lucid dreaming is much simpler, and anyone can do it."

 

"All right," I said. "I'll try it."

 

Felix smiled at me -- one of his real, kinda lopsided smiles instead of the dazzler he used to light up a room and get everybody wanting to fuck him.

 

When Felix was gone I got ready for sleep and thought about a map of Mélusine. But just like I expected, it was hard to focus on the gates. They just weren't that interesting. Now, the cathedrals, those made good landmarks. You could find your way anywhere in the city just by looking for the nearest dome or spire -- not counting the Mirador itself, of course; you could see that from just about any spot in Mélusine. I tried to think how Min-Terris and Phi-Kethetin and Ver-Istenna would map out with the compass directions, and I imagined each cathedral as a petal on a rose, and then the wind came up and the rose petals all went whirling away, and when I tried to look for them, there she was.

 

"Mildmay," Ginevra said, like she was a little unhappy with me, but not really. It was the sort of mood where I just needed to buy her something pretty and she'd perk right up.

 

"What do you want?" I asked her, because I sort of remembered that was an important thing to know.

 

"Where have you been? I was waiting."

 

"Waiting for what?"

 

"For you, silly-Gilly!" She used to call me that in front of her friends, when I used the alias Gilroi. Hearing her say that and laugh took me right back to the summer days we spent together, and the evenings out on the town, and the nights in my room in Pennycup.

 

"I been right here," I told her.

 

"I know that! When are you going to come along?" she demanded, and stamped her foot. We must be late for some show she wanted to see.

 

"Where?" I asked.

 

"Come on, I'll show you."

 

So I climbed out of bed and followed her.

_ **Felix** _

 

I cleared enough books from one of the tables in the sitting room that I could lay out the cards of the Sybilline in the spiral pattern that Mavortian had favored the most. First I turned over the center card, which should, if I had cast them correctly, represent Mildmay.

 

The Cat. Though it was often shown as a friendly pet, in Mavortian's deck this had been rendered as a leopard drowsing in the sun. The Cat could represent stealth, adaptability, or cleverness. It was a card I had drawn for Mildmay before, which probably meant that I had captured at least some of the significance of our current situation in this casting.

 

Next I started from the outside and worked my way in, turning one card at a time. They should become more relevant to the problem as the spiral moved in toward Mildmay's card.

 

The Deuce of Grails signified love between two people. That would be Mildmay's lost lover, Ginevra. It must mean that his feelings for her were still important to the current problem. The card wasn't necessarily about romantic love, though; it could possibly signify the feelings between me and Mildmay. I thought the first interpretation more likely, however.

 

The Maid of Pentacles. Then again, perhaps this one was Ginevra. The only other likely person it could signify would be Mehitabel, but I had never seen her represented with pentacles before.

 

The Hound. This could be either loyalty or betrayal, depending on context and perspective. No doubt it referred to Mildmay's loyalty to me, and my consistently poor treatment of him. I was trying to do better, but sometimes it seemed about as successful as trying to change the color of my eyes by wishing it.

 

The River. Not one of my favorite cards, but in the Sybilline it usually meant progress, inevitability, or sometimes the flow of time. We might not be able to avoid what was coming.

 

The Dead Tree. Classically, it meant missed opportunities and failure. More personally, could it mean the obligation d'âme? Or my own twisted soul?

 

The Snake. Usually this signified medicine or obscure knowledge. I was unsure how it applied here. Could it be Gideon's magical healing on Mildmay's fever? Or the research we were attempting to do now?

 

The Drowned Man. My hand shook as I turned this one up. It meant loss, separation, isolation -- but all I could think of was the basements of the Paladin warehouse and the smell of the Sim everywhere.

 

The Four of Swords. This was an odd card to find in the middle of a such a dire reading; it meant rest or refuge, a place to recover. That was three cards in a row I could not interpret easily.

 

The Apprentice. Could this mean me? I was long past my apprenticeship and my teacher was fortunately dead, but I had recently been in the position of a student to Mavortian and even to Thamuris. Or was some other apprentice signified? And of what master? It was frustrating to find the reading so clouded as we got to the inner portions of the spiral and the cards that should show the most important or unavoidable events.

 

The Ten of Staves. This one was simple enough: conflict without resolution. Stalemate. Together with the River, it suggested that we could not truly escape whatever danger threatened Mildmay, but we might be able to turn it to some other target or hold it at bay, with sufficient effort.

 

And lastly, the card most immediately relevant to Mildmay: Death. I knew it was not a literal death, but instead signified some difficult change or painful growth. But the sigil of Cade-Cholera upon the card seemed to glow malevolently, promising death in its most permanent and irrevocable form.

 

Gideon was curled in a chair near the fire, watching me ponder the cards. One of the useless tomes I had drawn from the Mirador's many libraries lay open and unregarded upon his lap. :Could there be a curse on Mildmay?: he asked at last.

 

"No," I snapped.

 

:Are you certain?: His mental voice was gentle, almost tentative. :You don't perceive curses the way you did when . . . when you first met him, do you?:

 

I remembered, vaguely, the red-tinged wall of thorns that had closed Mildmay about, the legacy of his murder of Cerberus Cresset. I had a more uncertain memory of those thorns closing in, ripping at Mildmay and trying to strangle him, but I didn't remember what I -- or Gideon or Mavortian -- had done to stop them.

 

"I don't have to see curses to know there aren't any on him," I said shortly. "The obligation d'âme makes it impossible. There are no spells on Mildmay except the one I cast."

 

:So it's not possible that Strych could have cursed him _through_ you?: Gideon pressed.

 

That was more unsettling. Malkar had done things I had never believed possible, using his hold on me to circumvent the wards of the Mirador and break the Virtu. Could he have done something, perhaps in those sendings that invaded my dreams, and removed my memory of it? "I would know," I insisted, but less certainly. "In any case, a curse from Malkar should have ended with his death."

 

Unless it was one of a half-dozen classes of spell which did not require the caster's continued existence. Gideon knew the possibilities as well as I, and didn't bother to reply; he merely raised a skeptical eyebrow.

 

"Fine." I pushed my chair back from the table and stood. "We'll go check for a curse right now. My methods, and then yours, just to be sure." We wouldn't even have to wake Mildmay, since Gideon's incantations were all silent these days. I opened the door to the small side room where Mildmay slept.

 

He wasn't there.

 

I stood frozen in the doorway, just staring at the bedcovers thrown aside, until Gideon came up behind me. :Can you sense him?:

 

I had to close my eyes a moment to concentrate, but there it was, as soon as I thought about it: a slender thread linking me to my brother. My _esclavin_.

 

"This way!" I snapped and charged out of the suite.

 

It was a long and twisted journey we took, down and around and through and along the Mirador's labyrinthine corridors. Mildmay couldn't be far ahead of us and probably wasn't moving fast, but whatever time we saved by running was lost when we missed a crucial turning or doorway. I tried to force myself to move more cautiously, but all my instincts were crying at me to hurry.

 

The River. The Drowned Man. Death.

 

As the trail led us downward into unused pathways, I began to fear that we would end up in the water-garden maze that lay directly beneath the Hall of the Chimeras. The water of the Sim diverted into that maze wasn't even ankle-deep, but that was before the winter rains deluged the city. How deep and swift would that water-maze run now?

 

Gideon seemed to have the same thought. :Perhaps he thinks the labyrinth will lay this ghost to rest.:

 

"_Perhaps_ he's not thinking at all," I snarled. "I _told_ him not to follow her!"

 

These halls were long unused, and the doors we passed through had rusted hinges. Fortunately, this meant we could see Mildmay's tracks clearly in the dust. It also helped that he had not re-locked any of the doors behind him, even when we saw knee-prints to show that he had paused to pick a lock.

 

:Only one set of footprints,: Gideon pointed out. :This is not the path to the water garden, then.: Unfairly, he didn't have to catch his breath to speak.

 

He was right. The footprints from our journey here some months ago -- and cane prints, in Mavortian's case -- would not have faded yet. These corridors must be some new maze we had not followed before. I only hoped that Mildmay's unerring sense for labyrinths would help him avoid whatever pitfall the ghost might be leading him toward.

 

At least the footprints we folllowed showed us that Mildmay had shoes on, of the soft-soled type he favored for stealth. He couldn't be wearing much aside from a nightshirt and perhaps a hastily-snatched robe, though. Gideon and I were still dressed, but he was barefoot and I had on the slippers I often wore in the evening. The corridors grew colder as we headed onward and downward, and Gideon was beginning to shiver.

 

We came to a heavy metal door flaking with rust, and the multiple knee-prints before it showed that Mildmay must have taken some time to get through the lock. Beyond that was a cramped tunnel where I had to duck to get through, and after a short distance another matching door.

 

:Was that the wall of the Mirador we just passed?: Gideon asked.

 

"Yes. We're in the Arcane now."

 

:But that door was unguarded!:

 

I shrugged. I had felt the wards as we passed through; those would be enough to protect against any common intrusion. Ignorance was an even stronger protection. The network of tunnels and streets and crypts that lay everywhere beneath Mélusine formed a maze of its own, which had never been properly mapped. It was probable that no one even knew these tunnels and those doors existed.

 

No one except Mildmay's lover's ghost, it seemed.

 

We crept through a frigid catacomb bricked with skulls, and then another passage lined with femurs and smaller bones stacked atop. The city of Mélusine stood upon the bones of the unnamed dead, founded upon a history no one remembered.

 

The air was getting damp. :What is that smell?: Gideon had a look as if he recognized it but could not quite put a name to it.

 

I knew it only too well. "The Sim." Under my determination to find Mildmay there began to run an undercurrent of gibbering horror. "Hurry!"

 

We came out of the catacombs into a broader arching tunnel full of the murmur of water. I sent my green witchlights swirling ahead and up; they revealed a channel through which the river, or a part of the river, ran between tiered quays. The topmost of these tiers was barely above the level water, and there was only enough room to walk single-file with our shoulders bumping the curve of the tunnel.

 

Gideon's orange witchlights followed mine and drew more color over the impermeable black surface of the river. The water was brown, muddier than usual because of the heavy rains, and the current was swift and deadly.

 

"Wait." I held out a hand and doused all my lights except one, which I sent to hover behind my head. Gideon followed my example and dimmed his lights as well.

 

Ahead, just around a curve of the tunnel, a faint warm light touched the bricks.

 

"Mildmay!" I hurried along the quay in a lopsided gait, ducking sideways to avoid contact with the slimy bricks yet fearing to step any closer to the dark water. I charged around the curve only to stop short in alarm, Gideon bumping into me from behind.

 

Mildmay, with only a candle in hand, was calmly descending the stairs that led from one quay to the next level. Already he was knee-deep in the water, not hesitating.

 

"Mildmay!" I bellowed, or tried to. It came out as more of a croak.

 

He turned calmly to look at me. "Felix? What are you doing here?"

 

"What am I --" I choked. "What are _you_ doing?"

 

He glanced about at the tunnel, the candle, the water swirling about the hem of his nightshirt, as if he'd never seen them before. "Ginevra needs me to see something," he said in a puzzled tone. He took another step, and now the water was at his hips.

 

"Stop!" I hissed, and finally it occurred to me to use the binding between us, to _force_ him to stop.

 

He came to a halt, but he still looked confused. "But she needs me." The hand not holding the candle gestured out toward the swift-running current.

 

I couldn't see any ghost, and I was too upset to try to sense one. I didn't care what the ghost wanted or needed in any case. "Come back here at once," I said, and tugged hard at the binding.

 

Mildmay's expression went flat, which was at least preferable to the horrible smile he'd produced last time I'd used the obligation d'âme against him. He turned obediently to walk up the stairs, but on the second step his weak leg gave way. The candle went tumbling into the river. Gideon's lights swept forward to fill the darkness, since I was too horrified to react myself.

 

Mildmay caught himself before he went under, but now he was half kneeling on the steps with the water up to his ribs. He looked down with that pin-scratch frown between his eyebrows. "Ginevra?" he asked. "Is that you? Let me go."

 

"Mildmay, get out of there!" I yelled, even as I saw a hand rise from the water, long-fingered and black as a half-rotted corpse, to snatch at the fabric of his nightshirt.

 

He had time only for a surprised "Oh!" and then he was gone.

 

Black horror consumed my mind, filling the edges of my vision. I started forward, tried to go after him, but as soon as the water touched the toes of my slippers I froze rigid. My knees locked and I couldn't move, no matter how my mind howled at me to help him.

 

Gideon pushed me aside and plunged into the water himself. After a moment I heard his mind-voice, but only dimly -- not because water or distance blocked it, but because my mind was full of the remembered cries of terrified children and the roar of water in my ears.

 

:Nothing,: he said, still beneath the surface. :He's not here.: Gideon came up a short way downstream, his gasps for breath loud in the enclosed tunnel, but still not enough to drown out my memories. Then he went under again.

 

:I can't find him. Felix, where is he? Felix! Tell me where to look for him!:

 

I remained still and mute as Gideon passed beyond the reach of my witchlights, and his mind-voice faded away, and still I was frozen in place. Long minutes later, when he staggered back along the quay, dripping and shaking with cold, I hadn't moved.

 

:Felix, what's wrong? Can you sense him? Felix? Where is he?:

 

I shook my head. "Gone," was all I could say. "He's gone." I had felt the bond between us go out, not recoiling like a snapped line, but doused like a flame under water.

 

I fell to my knees then, the water lapping at my trews. "He's gone." I wept uselessly, just as I had when Keeper drowned Belinda, and Ursy, and Rhais. And my tears did as little good now as they had then.

_I would go in after you,_ Mildmay had promised once when I confided my terror of the river to him. _Done it before._

 

And he had; he'd found and saved me in a labyrinth much like this one, beneath Klepsydra, where the Sim makes its final rush to the sea. He'd found me in total darkness and lifted me above the water even when I clawed at him in my desperation.

 

When it was Mildmay who needed _my_ help, I had not found the courage to step more than an inch into the river. Losing him was surely what I deserved for my cowardice. But what had Mildmay ever done to merit such a fate?

_ **Mildmay** _

 

When I woke up, it was dark. Pure pitch-blind dark, the kind you never get in the Mirador with all its flash windows paned with glass and crystal, and the servants to keep the fire alive, and here and there a lantern made by some hocus that never goes out. I could tell right off this wasn't the Mirador. It was cold and clammy, but sort of stuffy at the same time. The air smelled like sewage and dead fish and something else, something green. I was lying on a hard surface, and I was soaking wet.

 

I reached out, feeling for a wall, a candle, a weapon, anything. Something hissed, and I froze. The hissing went on, and it had some crackles and snaps in it -- like a teakettle just short of boiling, one of the cheap tin ones with the thin metal that pops when it warms up and cools down. I'd heard the noise before, but I couldn't place it right off.

 

There was the scrape of a lucifer, and a spark, and then a little candle flame too bright for my eyes, spitting and dancing from the wet. I looked away and blinked hard, then looked back at the man holding the candle.

 

Make that, the monster holding the candle.

 

"Kalliphorne?" I said, not sure I was right -- but what else could it be? "It's me, Mildmay. You remember me?" From what Cardenio said, she did remember. But this monster was staring at me with big yellow eyes and its head tipped on one side like I had two heads, both talking Kekropian.

 

"Hello?" I said again, sounding more like a little kid than a notorious thief and murderer.

 

The creature bared its teeth at me and hissed.

 

I pulled back, but then I figured the hissing was just how it talked. And maybe the teeth were supposed to be a smile. Or maybe it was warning me not to move. I was on a sort of a stone platform, like a table or a dais, and there was water all around. I was wearing just a night shirt and some light shoes, and I was fucking cold.

 

I looked back at the Kalliphorne leaning on the table, half in and half out of the water. It had the same dark greenish skin and scales and hairy crest and too many teeth, just like I remembered. And there was the six nipples down the front, but they seemed smaller than I thought they should be.

 

"Are you the Kalliphorne's husband?" I asked. "We met before, but we didn't really get to talk much."

 

He hissed and crackled back at me, and I figured that must be it. The Kalliphorne herself could speak Marathine, sort of -- good enough to understand, at least. But I never heard her mate say a word I knew. So maybe this was him. Or it could be another relative, I supposed. Just how many monsters were swimming around in the Sim that nobody knew about?

 

I had a look around me in the light of the little candle. This wasn't the same lair the Kalliphorne took us to before, and it didn't look anything like St. Kirban's. It was some sort of room that was more than half flooded, maybe from all the rains we'd been getting. The walls were made out of a dark stone -- gray, I thought, but it was hard to be sure because there was moss on them too. There were three of the table-things at this end of the room, sort of like altars, and I was lying on one of them. I couldn't see under the water, but I had the feeling it got deeper at the far end of the room. Maybe there was steps down under the water, and these altars up at the top end of the room, whatever they were for. There weren't no doors that I could see; they must be under the water somewhere.

 

"How did I get here?" I asked Mr. Kalliphorne. "You brought me, didn't you? But where from? And why?"

 

He just hissed and bubbled at me. I sighed. I could remember something about the river, but I thought that was just a dream. I was following someone what seemed like a long way through a long maze of corridors and doors. It was all fogged and blurry, like looking through a glass pane with frost on it.

 

Come to think of it, nearly everything from the past few weeks was kinda foggy in my memory. It went back all the way to the fever, maybe longer. It was like I'd been healed of the fever, but I still wasn't thinking straight.

 

Somebody must have put a spell on me. That explained the fogginess and maybe why I kept seeing Ginevra, because I remembered that right enough. I looked around me at all the water with that familiar river-smell about it, and I figured maybe that bit about following her down to the river wasn't a dream after all.

 

I looked at the Kalliphorne's mate. He was just watching me. "So, I'm guessing you're not the one that spelled me. But you brought me here . . . what, to get me away from the spell? Why here? There something special about this place?" Maybe that explained why I didn't feel like my head was stuffed with cotton soaked in rum anymore. "Y'know, it ain't going to do me much good to get away from the spell if I freeze to death doing it."

 

He broke into a whole bunch hisses and pops, pushing himself off the table with a splash. At least he left the candle sitting near me. He floated back across the water with more hisses and a couple of gestures that looked to me like the meant "stay there." Then his head slipped down under the water, and I was alone.

 

I looked around. Nothing much to see. Just me and a little smoky stub of a candle and a lot of sloshing water. "Well, fuck me sideways. Ain't this a box of shit tied up with a pretty bow?"

 

The water didn't say nothing back.

_ **Felix** _

 

I paid little heed as Gideon drew me away from the water, up through the Arcane, and back to my rooms. If we got lost along the way, I didn't notice. Gideon built the fire high in my bedroom, bundled me with blankets, and held me while I shook from more than cold. Perhaps he cast a spell, or perhaps it was my own desire to escape from reality; whatever the reason, it was not long until I slept.

 

I dreamed of my brother.

 

He came to me smiling sweetly, which should have been wrong on his face but somehow seemed beautiful and reassuring. He clasped my hands in his and told me not to worry. He leaned down -- I was sitting, he standing -- and kissed me on the lips, hot and alive and passionate.

 

We twined upon the bed, and his eyes burned with a possessive desire as he stripped my clothes from me one piece at a time, then removed his own. In the dream, his body was perfect -- no twisted leg, no scars from Malkar's lash. His muscles slid smoothly beneath pale skin like fine-grained silk, and I wanted to lick every piece of him.

 

Though Gideon and I had experimented carefully with sharing control during our sex play, I had not allowed any man to penetrate me since Malkar's rape nearly two years ago. But this was Mildmay, my brother, who had given up far too much for me already. As much as I longed to teach him all the delightful ways of the ganumedes, I did not want to risk scaring him away. Let him take the lead for now, and I could initiate him into the deepest mysteries later.

 

His hands skimmed swiftly over my flanks and teased only briefly at my proud flesh before seeking what lay behind. I gasped to feel his fingers within me and parted my legs in eager invitation.

 

He bent me double, still with that unfamiliar smile upon his face, and entered me slowly, implacably. I burned with sensations I had almost forgotten, submitting my body to his care as he took possession of me in the most primal fashion.

 

I knew it was a dream, yet I wished so much for it to be real that almost it felt like a true-dream, a vision such as I might experience beyond the Horn gate. Mildmay whispered to me that it was real, that this was how it was always meant to be. That was a truth I could not deny; I had desired him even in the midst of my madness, had wanted to comfort and caress him when I saw his pain in the Gardens of Nephele, had ached for him even as I turned to Astyanax and Gideon and thoughts of others to relieve my desires.

 

Mildmay took me, and held me, and said marvelous things to me until he spilled himself within me and I spent, unaided, upon his belly. After, he curled beside me with his arm flung across my chest and his odd smile gone smug, like the cat that has stolen the cream.

 

"If I'd known you were that good, I might have tried it years ago," he murmured. I could hear my influence shortening his Lower Town vowels to a more clipped, cultured accent.

 

I lifted his hand, stroked the unbroken fingers. "When did you start wearing rings?" I asked him. Certainly rings had many purposes both symbolic and decorative, but in the Mirador they always marked a wizard. Mildmay was annemer, yet these rings were somehow familiar to me -- gold and emeralds. Where had I seen them before?

 

"They match my eyes," he said with a smirk. But Mildmay's eyes had always been a warm, living green, like sunlit leaves -- not like the cold ice-chips mounted on these rings. Not like the rain-cloud gray that regarded me when I lifted my eyes to his now.

 

I looked down again, and saw the tattoos of the Mirador twining up his arms. "But you're not a wizard," I said in confusion. Unless . . . "You're not Mildmay!" I sat up and pushed him from me.

 

He laughed at me, his hair lengthening and darkening, his eyes leaching of color, and still that horrible smirk on his face that could never have belonged on Mildmay's. I scrambled away from him and fell over the far side of the bed --

 

I woke up. Gideon watched me from a short distance away, hesitating to touch. Had I struck him or shoved him in my dream?

 

But it wasn't a dream, true or otherwise; I realized that now. It was a sending. Someone had attacked my mind while I slept. And I knew exactly who it was: the same person who had entangled my brother in a ghostly deception and led him to his death in the waters of the Sim.

_ **Mildmay** _

 

I had a look about the room while the Kalliphorne's mate was gone. The three altars were just far enough apart that I couldn't jump from one to the other, not with my leg like it was. When I slid down carefully, the water in between was about belly-button deep. Up close, the walls looked plenty solid -- no doors, just like I thought -- and the black slime coating them didn't go up very high, which made me think the water wasn't usually this deep. When I headed for the far end of the room, I went a couple of steps and felt the floor drop off. I stuck my toes down far enough to tell it was just a step and not a straight drop. Holding the candle up high, I could just about tell how far away the other end of the room was, but I couldn't make out details. I sloshed back to my altar and climbed back up on it and sat huddled around the warmth of the little candle flame, wondering how long it would last. Maybe if I should try burning my nightshirt.

 

Mr. Kalliphorne said stay here, and I didn't think he meant me no harm, but how much could I trust him? Did he even know that humans could die from cold? Or what if Phoskis trapped the Kalliphornes with his portcullis and no one ever came back? How long should I wait?

 

My other choice was to go swimming around the room and probably find no doors, and then I could try diving down to look for a door, and no knowing where it would lead or if I could hold my breath long enough to get there. Oh, and I would have to do it all in the dark, since candles don't burn so good under water.

 

Waiting for a bit seemed like the thing to do, but that didn't make it no easier. I sat and shivered so hard I felt ready to throw up. I tried to stand up and move about a bit, get the blood moving, but there ain't a lot of moving about a person can do on top of an altar. My leg gave out on me and I came within a gnat's bite of kicking the candle over, or falling into the water and knocking my head on the altar along the way. Not so smart, Milly-fox. So I just swung my arms about and jiggled a bit, and it didn't do much to warm me up.

 

Then I heard a splish and I squinted across the room to see a couple of big yellow eyes blinking back at me. Then two more popped up a little ways off, and the pair of Kalliphornes came gliding through the water at me.

 

Seeing them together, I could tell them apart right enough. The she-Kalliphorne was a paler green color and had more hair on her crest, and when she hoisted herself up from the water her dugs was definitely more developed. Still not the kind I liked to see, but bigger than her mate's.

 

"Young fox-like one," she said to me in that two-tone voice like a street organ or a cat in heat.

 

"K-kalliphorne," I said with my teeth a-chatter. "Why w-was I brrrought here?"

 

She brought out a little oil-cloth pouch -- I didn't care to think where she carried it -- and got out another little candle-stub. Just in time, because the first one was starting to sputter.

 

"My hus-band saying you has bad magic on you," the Kalliphorne said. "He bringing you here to be safe."

 

"And where's here?"

 

"We is under the wizards' tower, but no wizards is coming here," she told me. "We finding this place after he is so sick. This is safe place, no magic here."

 

Now, I don't know much about hocus-stuff, but it seemed strange to me that there would be a place with no magic right underneath the Mirador, in one of those forgotten corridors where the maps don't go. Why would hocuses want to keep magic out of a place like this, a place with altars? Wouldn't this be a place where they wanted to cast spells?

 

But maybe they wanted to make sure there was no outside magic mixing with whatever they planned to do inside here. It wasn't no stranger than having part of the Bastion shielded against magic. Strych kept me in a room like that, and Felix said he couldn't sense me there, even through the binding.

 

The binding. Thinking of that made me frown. Could Felix sense me in here? "What kind of magic did you say is on me?" I asked.

 

"Baaad magic," she moaned. "Chains is on you, chains all over."

 

I groaned. "That's not bad magic," I told her. "Well, it could be, but in this case it isn't. I asked my brother to do that. It's to keep me safe from people want to hurt me."

 

She hissed like an angry cat. "No, no, is bad magic, is! Old chains, yes, same as before, same as when you is leaving the city in the boat with the bad wizard."

 

That stumped me for a bit; I thought she was talking about two years ago when I escaped with Mavortian and Bernard. But she wouldn't call Mavortian a bad wizard, after he healed her husband. Then I realized she meant when Strych kidnapped me. I wasn't awake for that part, so I didn't remember leaving the city.

 

"But also," the Kalliphorne said, "my husband is smelling new magic. Lies and death is tangled in the chains."

 

So did that mean she wasn't talking about the binding by forms? I thought no other hocus could spell me when Felix put the obligation d'âme on me -- that was the whole idea. But it sounded like she was saying someone used the binding to get at me with some new spell, and that was nasty. That was how Strych got to me.

 

"Okay, so I'll tell my brother, and he'll take the new magic off me," I tried to reason with her. "But I can't stay here -- I'll freeze to death!"

 

She turned to her mate and they hissed and burbled at each other for a bit. "Not safe," she said finally. "Bad magic is trying to kill you with lies. My husband saw."

 

"What did he see? How did he bring me here?"

 

More teakettle noises. "You is being led to the river by lies," the Kalliphorne said. "You is being led _into_ the river. My mate is bringing you here to be safe. Young fox-like one helps us, we helps him."

 

"Yeah, thanks," I sighed. So the dream about following Ginevra through a maze wasn't just a dream. And the fog blurring my thoughts wasn't just from the winter fever. And fuck, maybe the fever wasn't just from the cold rains, either. But hiding out with a couple monsters in some dead hocuses' flooded worship-hall wasn't going to fix any of that. I coughed a little and tried to figure a way to make her see reason. "Okay. Now that we know there's a problem, my brother can fix it. Thanks for helping me out and all, but we can take of this now. Just show me the way out of here, I'll go straight to Felix and get him to take this curse thing off me."

 

"Not safe, not safe!"

 

I groaned and swiped the damp hair back from my face. "Look, I'm not safe here, either. I could _die_ from being cold too long, do you understand that?" My hands and feet were numb, and I wasn't shivering so much anymore. I knew that was a bad sign. I didn't feel stupid or slowed down, but the Kalliphorne was talking faster than me even with all those teeth in her way. So maybe I was slow and just didn't know it. I tried humming a bit of Jeniard's Lover, but the tempo didn't feel right.

 

Meanwhile, the Kalliphorne was talking to her husband again. Then he just slipped down under the water and ended that little talk.

 

"He is checking," she told me. "Checking to see if safe."

 

"Good. Great. So . . . you can show me a way out of here? To where the wizards are?"

 

She shook her head. "We is not going near wizards."

 

Lovely. I was cursed, half-drowned, freezing, _and_ lost. Just a perfect fucking night all round.

_ **Felix** _

 

I stormed into Robert's workshop with my night-robe flapping about my shins. He was waiting, as I knew he would be. He raised one carefully-sculpted eyebrow and said archly, "Why, Felix! Such haste to come to my side. It's true, our encounter was cut sadly short. But don't you think you should --"

 

Cabaline wizards are sworn never to cast spells directly upon another person, but there are ways around such restrictions for a wizard sufficiently motivated, powerful, or trained to think sideways -- as I am. I called a wind that blew the words from Robert's mouth, tumbled his books and instruments to the floor, and pressed him steadily back until his shoulders met the wall. He was shouting at me, but his threats couldn't escape past the wind of my fury.

 

I moderated the force of it a little, just enough to let him speak while still holding him against the wall. "What did you do to my brother?" I growled.

 

Robert's face twisted in a sneer. "What's the matter, did someone take your favorite toy away?"

 

"What did you do to him?!" My voice rose. "What did you do to _me_?"

 

Twisting uncomfortably in his pinned position, Robert nonetheless managed to look impatient and contemptuous. "Now Felix, I should think by now you would recognize the handiwork of a fellow student."

 

"What?"

 

"Did Beau not teach you all his tricks? I'm not surprised. He could scarcely get rid of me fast enough once he bought you from that brothel in Pharaohlight, but I knew he wouldn't be able to give you a _full_ education in the time he had. It's no wonder if he left out a few things here and there, what with having to teach you how to speak and write and mimic your betters."

 

"Beau? What are you --"

 

"Beaumont Livy, my mentor. Oh!" Robert smiled falsely. "I forgot. You knew him as Malkar Gennadion."

 

I was so shocked that I let the wind abate slightly. Robert was a student of Malkar's? It made sense, it a twisted fashion. This was how Robert had known of my history, and how he'd just happened to reveal it to the court at a time that would drive me conveniently back into Malkar's arms, just when it would be most helpful to his plans.

 

"You were a student of Malkar's," I mused, not really asking Robert to confirm it. All the pieces were coming together now. When Robert had come to St. Crellifer's, when he had strapped me down and forcibly taken my magic for his own purposes, he must have left something behind. Some kind of trigger or back door that allowed him access to me even when the wards of the Mirador and my own powers were restored. That was how he'd been able to invade my dreams. And that must be how he had reached Mildmay, as well -- through me!

 

Robert flung up his hands and cast at me, trying to take advantage of my distraction and dismay. But he misjudged. I had faced down Malkar himself not long ago. A discarded apprentice was not going to best me in direct conflict, when I had all my faculties about me. I swatted his stream of fire aside, and it ignited several books piled upon a side table that had not toppled in my first attack. I called the wind again, and it fanned the flames as it pressed Robert tightly into the wall.

 

"You used my magic to attack my brother," I snarled. "No wonder he couldn't resist the compulsion to follow -- you used the obligation d'âme!"

 

Robert writhed, trying to get his hands free, eyeing the growing flames uncomfortably. "You're the one that put the binding on him," he spat. "I can't see why you'd object to my having a little fun with it, too."

 

I flashed upon Mildmay, lurching unsteadily in the foul water of the Sim, until that vile dead hand came up to pull him under. "You killed my brother!" I roared in tandem with the deepening voice of the fire.

 

Robert's eyes lit with triumph. "Oh, did he drown, poor boy?"

 

I screamed in inarticulate rage and flung my hands out at Robert. Snatching at his clothes, I lifted him up with magic so that he was pinned higher on the wall, each sleeve and boot held firmly in place. A few feet from his right hand, the fire was rippling up toward the ceiling.

 

"What are you doing?" Robert cried, wiggling his fingers futilely. "You can't harm me -- your oaths forbid it!"

 

It was true. And though I hadn't been entirely true to them, though I had seen the value in methods of magic outside the Cabaline strictures, I still held those oaths important. I ground my teeth, then let the wind drop completely, and the bubbling flames shrank down. Without the fuel of my rage, the fire would make little headway against the comprehensive wards of the Mirador. Still, I was happy to see it doing plenty of damage to Robert's books and the delicate instruments that had been set out on his worktable.

 

"What of your oaths, Robert?" I growled at him. "What do you think Stephen and the Curia will do when they learn you killed Mildmay?"

 

"Nothing!" he said firmly, encouraged by the retreat of the flames even though he could not be comfortable splayed out upon the wall. "Your gutter-rat brother murdered a wizard of the Mirador. They'll be glad to see him gone!"

 

"And when I tell them you're a student of Malkar's?" I asked. "When I tell them you used Malkar's methods on _me_? You'll burn for heresy, Robert. Why shouldn't I get started on that right now?" I twitched a finger, and the lessened flame stood a little taller, leaning toward Robert.

 

"If you tell them that, I'll tell them you performed necromancy!" Robert shrilled. "Here, in the Mirador, while you were under oath. We'll burn together!"

 

"Oh no, Robert," I said sweetly. "Stephen already knows about the necromancy. He agreed there was nothing else I could have done, and there would be no prosecution for it."

 

The furious flush that had suffused Robert's features drained away, leaving him an odd purple-gray color. "You -- what? No, Stephen would never condone --"

 

"But he did," I insisted. "After all, I was only reversing the heresy established two hundred years ago by the Cabal itself. What, you didn't know about that? They used ghosts to create the Virtu, and the Virtu then created more ghosts. I laid them all to rest, and then I mended the Virtu without making use of such unsavory methods. Stephen is grateful to me for cleaning up the Cabal's mess, and for keeping quiet about it."

 

Robert deflated for a moment, then clenched his fists and railed with new energy, "And what would he say if I told him your teacher was really Brinvillier Strych? Do you think he'd believe your tale of harmless, helpful necromancy then?"

 

"That wouldn't help you much, since you were his student too," I pointed out.

 

"Who says so? You?" Robert sneered. "Who do you think they would believe, you or me?"

 

He might be right about that. Despite my feat of mending the Virtu, my reputation was still very shaky among the Curia. They would be quick to jump on any new evidence that I was actually an enemy of the Mirador -- and I had no doubt that Robert could produce evidence linking Malkar to his previous incarnation as Strych. Robert's own standing on the Curia was far more solid; at the worst, they considered him occasionally inept.

 

"They can still detect the spells you cast on me, and on Mildmay through me," I said.

 

"If they care," Robert snapped. "I'll say I was ridding the Mirador of filth."

 

"Using Strych's methods? You'll prove my accusation for me!"

 

Robert hesitated a moment, then shrugged in false bravado. "Fine. So we burn together. Or we both keep our mouths shut, and neither of us has to die."

 

Stalemate. The Ten of Swords. I snarled in frustration. "Maybe I'm willing to pay the price, if I can have my revenge. You _killed_ my brother!" I encouraged the flame higher still, and though it did not have the feral voice it had gained from my wind, it licked eagerly enough at Robert's boot.

 

He shook and twisted, but didn't break. "Willing to burn to death for your incestuous love? I never would have thought it of you, Felix."

 

I cursed, dropping my eyes. He knew me too well. I had no wish to be burned and have my head set on a spike over the gates -- or even to be cast out from the Mirador. But Robert had to pay, somehow.

 

I turned my hand, brushing the fire aside, and called his rings. It should have been impossible; the rings should be bound to Robert's ringers by magic. But he was weak, and occasionally inept for all his clever scheming, and my magic easily overwhelmed his. One by one the rings slid from his fingertips and leapt to my hand. I called his sash as well, broke his pendant and bracelet, yanked the earrings bleeding from his ears. All the magical paraphernalia that marked and empowered him as a Cabaline wizard came flying to my hand.

 

He writhed and screamed when the earrings came out. "What are you doing?"

 

"Both of us, or neither, Robert," I said, closing my fist around the jewelry. "You're not going to tell anyone about what happened tonight, or we'll both burn. Say you had an accident in your workroom with an experimental spell. Started a fire --" I tossed the sash into the flame "-- and ruined your jewelry. You'll have to buy all new now, and re-spell them one by one. And you _won't_ use emeralds." I opened my fist to reveal a lumpen slag of half-melted silver and gold marked with bumps where the gemstones hid.

 

Then I turned my back and left his workroom. Left him hanging there on the wall with the fire eating its way through his worktable. My spell holding him up would die within minutes, but without his jewelry, Robert would have to do actual work to put the fire out.

 

It was a pitiful revenge, wholly insufficient to pay for what Robert had done to me, and to Mildmay. But I could think of nothing better. My stomach roiled and my hand clenched about the remains of Robert's jewels as I stalked through the deserted halls.

_ **Mildmay** _

 

When the Kalliphorne's mate came back and started all the hissing and burbling again, I didn't pay too much attention. I was starting to feel tired, and numb, and like none of it really mattered. I wasn't even that cold anymore -- and I knew that meant I was in trouble, but I couldn't really make myself care.

 

Then the Kalliphorne turned to me and said, "Bad magic smell iss gone."

 

"Mmm?"

 

"Chains is still seeking you, but death lies is gone."

 

"Oh. Well . . . good." I tried to sit up and think about what that meant, but my thoughts wouldn't run straight. "So, uh . . . Felix must've figured it out then, huh? Knew he would."

 

"Iss safe for you to be leaving now."

 

"Oh! Right." I tried to stand up, but my right leg wouldn't hold me. "Um . . ." I crouched lopsided on the stone, looking down at the water and wondering how I was going to do this.

 

"We will be taking you," the Kalliphorne said, and hauled me into the water without giving me a chance to protest. At least she was nice enough to keep my head above the surface, for the first bit.

 

Mr. Kalliphorne was wrapping up the half candle stub that was left. We were already halfway across the room by the time the light went out. "You breathing big now," the Kalliphorne moaned in my ear.

 

I took a deep breath, and then a clammy sage-scented hand clapped over my mouth and the water closed over my head.

 

I got a good sense of direction, but turns out it don't work so good underwater. I knew we went down first, and there was a tunnel that went sideways, and then a dark place where they let me catch my breath again, and another tunnel -- hallway, most likely -- and then I lost track. The two Kalliphornes handed me off from one to the other like a sack of loot, and I couldn't see anything with eyes open so I mostly kept them closed. We went down so deep one time my ears popped and my chest burned, and when they let me breathe after that trip I had to cough for a couple minutes. It was good they didn't expect me to do no swimming, because my leg was near useless from the cold.

 

And then one of them set me up on a ledge where the water was shallow, and the other one said, "Here. There is a way up from here." And her mate lit the sputtering candle again, and I realized I knew where we were.

 

It was the water-maze directly under the Hall of the Chimeras, where Felix did part of his spell to fix the Virtu. I would have laughed, except I was afraid it'd sound more like crying.

 

"You is going home now?" the Kalliphorne asked. She sounded sort of worried. Maybe she really cared.

 

I gave my leg a rub, but I couldn't feel anything anyway. So I tried standing up, real careful, and that sort of worked. I'd have to watch where I stepped with my toes all numb, but I thought I could manage.

 

"Yeah, I know the way from here," I said, and took the candle stub from Mr. Kalliphorne. "Thanks for, um, helping me out. Again. I know a few months ago you told Cardenio when I was kidnapped. So I guess I owe you one, now."

 

She bared her teeth at me. "Is good to be having friends."

 

I forced my numb face into a smile. "Yeah. Friends. Thanks again, and, uh, maybe I'll see you around. Send word if you need anything."

 

Then they were gone with a couple of splashes, and it was time for me to head home with a lot more splashing.

 

If following Ginevra down to the river seemed like a dream, this was more of a nightmare. I kept running into things and tripping because I couldn't feel my feet, and my right leg wouldn't come up more than a couple inches from the floor anyway. On all the stairs -- and there were lots of them -- I lead with my left leg on every step, until it was aching almost as bad as the right. All I wanted to do was stop and lie down and go to sleep, but I knew that was a good way to get dead, so I just kept going, one painful step at a time. The candle died before I got to the part of the Mirador that lit up, so then I had to grope along with numb hands. I was filthy with dust on top of wet and half-dead from exhaustion by the time I reached Felix's rooms.

 

Gideon was curled up in a chair in the sitting room, watching the fire die down. He turned to look when I came in and nearly fell out of the chair. His mouth dropped open so I could almost see the stump of his tongue. Then he charged across the room and hugged me, dirty and clammy as I was.

 

"Missed me?" I guessed.

 

He went into a flurry of gestures. I could usually understand Gideon all right, partly because he didn't try to tell me anything too complicated. But this time he had to go over and over what he was trying to tell me until I finally got it. "You thought I was dead? Why?"

 

He made another sign that I realized was supposed to mean something sinking underwater.

 

"Drowned?" I said. And then a memory came back to me. Felix was _there_ when I got to the river. How could I have forgot that? "Oh no, he saw me go under, and then he couldn't sense me -- oh, fuck me sideways with a bargepole!"

 

All this time I was near freezing to death and trying to convince the Kalliphornes to let me go back to my brother, he was thinking I'd drowned. And that had to be just about the worst thing that could happen to Felix. Sure, he was terrified of drowning himself, but only half his fear came from that crazy Keeper of his trying to drown Felix as a little kid. The other half came from watching the bastard drown Felix's friends. For him to be there watching me disappear into the river -- he must have gone just about batfuck.

 

"Where is he?" I demanded.

 

Gideon pointed at the door to Felix's bedroom and made sleeping gestures.

 

"Really? How'd you manage that?"

 

He shrugged, a little sheepish.

 

"Okay, well, I guess I better go tell him I'm not dead." All I really wanted was to collapse into a nice warm bed, but this was more important.

 

Gideon stopped me. He ran his hands over my hair and shoulders, and his lips moved a little, and all of a sudden my nightshirt was dry, and so were my shoes and my hair. Then he did it again, and I felt warmth wrap me up like a blanket, and the nasty burning tightness in my chest eased off. I moaned and swayed a little. It felt so good I just wanted to go to sleep right there.

 

Gideon pointed me at the bedroom door and gave me a little push between the shoulder blades. I went.

_ **Felix** _

 

I wasn't sure just what roused me from the sleep Gideon had urged on me. Someone was in the room, standing between the bed and the dim light from the hearth. It almost looked like Mildmay, and I probed stupidly at the lost bond as one tongues the hole where a tooth has fallen out.

 

The bond was alive and pulsing, and the man it attached to was in the room with me.

 

"Mildmay!" I leapt from the bed so quickly that black spots swam before my eyes. He caught at me, but his own balance was scarcely better. I managed, just barely, to direct our fall toward the bed, and we tumbled upon the soft mattress with my brother chuckling weakly.

 

"Mildmay!" I whispered. "You're not . . ." I couldn't even say it.

 

"Not drowned, no," he said. He was warm and safe in my arms and not trying to pull away from me.

 

"But I saw her pull you down. Your ghost."

 

He shook his head against the tumbled coverlet. "Not a ghost. That was the Kalliphorne."

 

It took me a moment to place the term: it was the monstrous creature Cardenio had described, which warned him of Mildmay's kidnapping.

 

"Actually," he went on, "it was the Kalliphorne's mate. We done him a good turn once, me and Mavortian. He smelled some curse on me and tried to help. Took me to some abandoned room under the Mirador where he said magic couldn't reach. I guess that's why you couldn't sense where I was."

 

"Like when Malkar had you." I swallowed. "The curse was from Robert. I knew he was planning something, but I didn't know he was another student of Malkar's. He used . . . some technique I don't know, to reach you through the bond."

 

Mildmay's eyes narrowed as he filed that information away.

 

"I went after him," I said. "As soon as I realized. But I couldn't -- he knows things that could get me burned for heresy."

 

Mildmay's face hardly moved, but I could read the amusement there. "Heresy? You?"

 

I snorted. "I couldn't give Robert what he deserved, but I did strip his rings from him." I sat up, calling a witchlight, and picked up the lump of twisted gold and jewels from beside the bed. "He won't be able to do any magic for a while."

 

Mildmay touched the slagged jewelry in my hand. "Cabaline magic, you mean?"

 

"Any magic," I corrected. "The only way he could have been using Malkar's tricks inside the Mirador without being detected is to cover them up with some sort of Cabaline gloss. Without his rings and sash, he won't be able to hide what he's doing. So we'll have a little while to figure out some better way to get to him." I was already considering some possibilities, but they might need adjustment now that Mildmay wasn't dead.

 

He yawned hugely. "Forget Robert. I need to sleep now. Gideon dried me off and warmed me up, but I still ain't slept right in weeks."

 

"Haven't slept properly," I corrected.

 

Mildmay just made an impatient noise, his eyes drifting shut. I realized he was speaking more freely than he had with me since we got him from the Bastion. I hoped he wouldn't revert, in the light of day. I wanted to preserve this moment, the two of us tangled innocently on my bed.

 

"Stay here," I urged.

 

His eyes slitted open doubtfully.

 

"Just to sleep," I added quickly. "My room is warmer than yours. And I want . . . I need to be able to keep an eye on you, just for a little while. I won't be able to relax unless I know you're safe."

 

He considered. "My choice?"

 

I hadn't used the obligation d'âme on him, and I wouldn't. Not for this. "Your choice," I said, clenching my fist around the lump of gold.

 

"Okay then." He forced his eyes open and looked about blearily, trying to figure the best way to get into the bed.

 

I took him by the shoulders, surprised when he didn't object, and half-pulled, half-lifted him into the warm nest I had so recently occupied. I went around to the other side of the bed -- the cooler side, away from the fire -- and climbed in, propped on my elbow to watch him.

 

Mildmay was asleep within seconds, the harsh lines of his face smoothed by relaxation. There was a smudge off dirt on his forehead. I wanted to clean it off, to hold him and kiss him and soothe all his hurts away. But he hadn't given me that right.

 

So this was Death, I thought. Not literal death, but a painful change indeed. My heart belonged to Mildmay even more than it had before, and nothing -- not sex or revenge or the recognition of my peers -- was as important as his safety. Robert's ruined jewelry lay forgotten on my table as I watched over my brother's sleep.

~*~


End file.
